Buildings of Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania considers the architecture, landscape, and town plans of thirty-one counties west of Blue Mountain and north to Lake Erie, including cities and communities big and small, from Pittsburgh, Beaver Falls, Johnstown, and Altoona to Bellefonte, State College, Lock Haven, Clarion, and Erie, and scores of places in between. The first comprehensive look at the built environment in this large and varied territory, the volume spans the years from the late eighteenth century through to the first decade of the new millennium and reveals a range of architectural surprises. The authors discuss exemplary and everyday buildings and places—Harmonist villages, Carnegie libraries, river communities, amusement parks, farms and barns, the crossroads of Breezewood, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater among them—and canvass the scores of bridges, railroads, and inclines that cross the region’s rivers, hills, and mountains. Descriptions of close to 150 of the commonwealth’s small settlements, from coal patches to pike towns, capture the intense dialogue between industry and agriculture that typifies western Pennsylvania. Close to 400 illustrations, including photographs, maps, and drawings, bring the nearly 800 entries to life. Intended to complement the forthcoming companion volume—Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania—in the Buildings of the United States series, this book will pique the interest and curiosity of architectural historians and general readers alike.

A volume in the Buildings of the United States series of the Society of Architectural Historians